Knuckles' Wasted Time
by Dr Namgge
Summary: Knuckles has some time to kill and an idea of how to do it. Deja vu? again? Turns out nobodies immune...


Knuckles looked blankly. Staring in front of him was a small pile of what he could only describe as gibberish. The occasional word made sense, but the near constant stream of jargon like "kawaii", and "baka", had made Knuckles confused. "I thought this was the English version," he said aloud to nobody in particular.

Knuckles was no stranger to foreign languages. More than half the ruins in the emerald chamber were written in ancient Echidnian. However, the only language Knuckles knew how to speak and read was English. Furthmore to Knuckles' plight, the text his was reading was in the English alphabet, but didn't make any sense at all in the combination he was reading it.

Knuckles relented and clicked the back button on his computer. He returned to the selection of stories in front of him, still wondering why he was doing this. Knuckles had heard from Tails that it was terrible. However Knuckles wasn't doing this for his pleasure, he was doing it to out do Sonic. Knuckles had always considered Sonic a rival, even if they got on quite well since the incident with the Death Egg, and when he'd heard Sonic was incapable of reading these stories, he figured he'd prove his worth by getting through them.

It was several seconds later that the new story opened. Being on an island suspended in the sky made achieving a speedy connection to the internet difficult, even with some of the enhancements Tails had made. Nevertheless Knuckles found the patience in him to keep reading.

_Rain pelted the ground hard. The soil was already a thick mud, squelching under the red and green shoes of the Echidna. Not that Knuckles had anywhere to go. The Master Emerald was all he ever had to worry about. Knuckles tossed his glance back to it; its dim glow providing a bit of light in an otherwise gloomy sky. Today was the same as every other day. The only thing that ever seemed to change in Knuckles' dreary life was the weather. Knuckles sighed slightly, this life was boring him._

_Knuckles took shelter from the rain under a nearby palm tree. It offered little protecting from the force of the water, but Knuckles was more content to rest his back against the tree than he was to stay try. The Echidna looked to the Master Emerald again, and sighed. Pulling a knife from his shoe, he spoke solemnly "That wretched Emerald," he said coldly, yet filled with hatred. Knuckles turned away from it, and closed his eyes…_

"… as if I would actually do that," Knuckles said dryly, "I'm the sworn guardian of the Master Emerald, to protect it is a privilege, and I will spend my life protecting it." Knuckles recited, proudly, and defiantly against whoever had written Knuckles with a penchant for long fringes and black clothes.

Knuckles' computer informed him that his connection had timed out twice before he eventually got back to the story page. More uninspired names hit his screen. Terrible puns based on Amy's Surname, as well as even more puns on the double spelling of the word "Tails" went past his eyes. The Echidna groaned mentally as he read them. Eventually he found a story which didn't sound too bad, and he began reading again.

_Jet wave and storm, nown as the Babylon rouges to many, were basically common theifs, and they knew this., It was the only way to live after all eithr you worked for a living or you stole your living. Maybe if you were lucky you could get it all for free and not have to worry about the law, but not everone was Sonic the Hedghog. _

_"D-did you get it?£ Storm stuttered nervously._

_"get what?" Jet squaked, he walked back into there hideout._

_"The device" Storm asked impattiently, his foot tapping._

_"You're doing it again!"_

_"Doing what?" _

_"That foot tap thing. God do you have anny idea how annoying that is?" Jet yelled annoyed, as he slammed his sack down. With a loud thud the contents slipped out onto the floor._

_Wave picked it up Carefully she took hold of it, and walked out of the room with it without any talking to the other too._

_"What is that anyway?" Jet asked Storm._

_Storm loked blank, "No idea…_

_"_Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't a spell checker," Knuckles said aloud again. He stretched, and pressed the back button again. The spelling errors were frustrating him, and making it difficult to read. The red Echidna slumped back into his chair, and waited for his computer to catch up with what he was doing.

Knuckles decided he'd try a different tact. Using the search function, he began to narrow his choices down. Naturally the first option was to stick to English only stories, and from then narrow it further to just comedy pieces. Knuckles had an absurd sense of humour, and he wondered if anybody would be able to successfully replicate this. After a few minutes looking, and even longer Knuckles eventually found himself reading.

_Tails had spent his day off filming in the company of Amy. They had been in the park, having a romantic picnic together. The sun was setting, and a few flickeys were chirping in there usual irritating manner. However today this didn't bother Tails, he was too happy with Amy for it to be a concern. He looked contentedly at her face, becoming captivated by her beauty. Tails was the happiest he had been in a long while, and he could tell that Amy felt the same._

_"Hey Tails, long time no see. How's your sister?" said an unfamiliar voice._

_"Err, who are you exactly?" Tails asked, with no clue as to who he was referring to. Tails looked to the source of the voice, it belonged to a human. The human in question was slightly out of shape, and filthy. He smelt terrible, and Tails was sure he hadn't washed for some time._

_"It's me, Dr Namgge." the man said, as if Tails should know._

_Tails starred back blankly, he had absolutely no idea who this person was_

"… And neither do I?" Knuckles said, equally as confused as the story's version of Tails was. Knuckles spent several seconds wondering, until he noticed the authors name was a direct match to this new characters, "Urgh, self insertion," Knuckles muttered, as he dragged his paw down his face, "If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's when an author inserts himself into a story. That's even less original in terms of humour than breaking the forth wall, right?" Knuckles asked, unsure who exactly he was asking.

The idea got Knuckles thinking. What would happen if an author then wrote about someone reading one his own stories, in which he himself had inserted himself. Is that a self insert inside a self insert, Knuckles thought, scratching his head. "Also," he continued thinking, "where would that go if that was then referenced in the story?" Knuckles asked aloud, perplexed. "I think… I think…" The Echidna fumbled, "I think I've over thought this."

Knuckles shook his head. He knew now why Sonic couldn't master reading fan fiction, and now he himself had got himself a headache for his efforts. Knuckles gave it one more attempt, and read another story, this time called _Knuckles Wasted Time. _Knuckles caught sight of the authors name as he did; and groaned as he read another story by an author called _Dr Namgge_.


End file.
